


Rejoice, Fair Ganymede

by IntoTheRiverStyx



Series: Changing of the Guard [1]
Category: Arthurian Mythology
Genre: Identity Issues, Unrequited Love, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:28:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25657432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IntoTheRiverStyx/pseuds/IntoTheRiverStyx
Summary: Lancelot – this was his name, he knew now, a name given to him by people who were the reason he was alive despite never being able to think of them as his parents – had never asked for this role, never wanted the fate of the Kingdom to be decided by his sword and strength.Camelot's fate had been decided time and time again – in battle, in whispers in the throne room, in places where even the walls had forgotten the secrets they tried so desperately to hold onto – and many of those times had indeed been cast by Lancelot's blade.Cast – he had always thought of fate and such as things that were cast. You could set them in motion, do everything in your power to influence where they landed, but there would always be things you could not control. He wondered if there were things the gods, too, could not control, if there were points in histories that were yet to happen that would, ultimately, be inescapable.
Relationships: Gawain/Bertilak de Hautdesert, Guinevere/Arthur Pendragon, Lancelot du Lac/Arthur Pendragon
Series: Changing of the Guard [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1874362
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9





	1. Chapter 1

He was alone again.

This situation, this alone state and this feeling of the world existing so far outside his reach he dared not try to imagine what the world was like when he was not present, was nothing new. He'd been raised apart from the world that had spat him out. This world, this one he'd been brought to as a nearly-grown man – in stature, not in experience – was something of a novelty most days. There were rules he did not understand, spoken words that meant nothing and unspoken sentiments that had the power to destroy a King and his Kingdom alike.

He simply had not experienced it in many months, and the isolation that trailed just behind the feeling that there was wonder in the world worth experiencing had nearly been forgotten.

His King, he knew, was one room over, his Queen called to her husband's bedroom for the night. It was a rare thing that seemed fragile. He did not understand the fragility – she loved him terribly and he was so kind to her that he was hard-pressed to call it anything besides love. 

He would guard his King from the world, or perhaps the world from his King, until his very last. Usually, he was so close that he could hear his King's breathing, almost hear his heartbeat even through the layers of clothing and cloak that seemed almost as heavy as duty itself.

This King – Arthur, as he insisted on being called in private – viewed him – _Him!_ – as worthy of being the King's Champion. He dared not question his King's conviction, did not want to seem as if he knew better than the man who seemed destined to rule the land. (And, he let himself think in rare private moments, perhaps one day the world.)

Lancelot – this was his name, he knew now, a name given to him by people who were the reason he was alive despite never being able to think of them as his parents – had never asked for this role, never wanted the fate of the Kingdom to be decided by his sword and strength. 

Camelot's fate had been decided time and time again – in battle, in whispers in the throne room, in places where even the walls had forgotten the secrets they tried so desperately to hold onto – and many of those times had indeed been cast by Lancelot's blade.

Cast – he had always thought of fate and such as things that were cast. You could set them in motion, do everything in your power to influence where they landed, but there would always be things you could not control. He wondered if there were things the gods, too, could not control, if there were points in histories that were yet to happen that would, ultimately, be inescapable.

Such questions may one day be the death of him.

For tonight, though, his hand in seeing where Camelot's fate was cast amounted to not falling asleep at the King's door. Asleep, he feared, he would wake too late in the event of an emergency, be too drowsy to take up arms before any threat was upon him.

This was fear ruling him, he knew, for he slept most night, but then again most nights he slept not more than two steps from his King. It was easier, he found, when he could see his King – when he could see Arthur.

When the morning was still hours away, Arthur would rise and collect Lancelot from the hall – usually still awake, sometimes asleep despite his best efforts – and go about his day as if the night had been no different from all the others.

There was much to do before the sun rose, and the man who found himself Camelot's impossible King would not hear of letting anyone else do his duties. Lancelot thought it was something his foster-father had instilled, as his foster-brother was much the same save for their dispositions. If they could do something, they would do it whether or not others may call it beneath their station. He'd considered asking why, considered learning for himself why these brothers seemed so determined to bend time itself around their task lists. It had always seemed unwise, in the end, to ask someone a question where one of the logical follow-ups would be to inquire about their abilities (or lack thereof) regarding chronomancy.

They – his King, his King's Seneschal who doubled as his former foster-brother, and Lancelot – would spend much of the last of the night's dark huddled together over a table with scribblings that made no sense to Lancelot. Much of the time, the brothers would talk in quite voices about trades and harvests and the comings and goings of allies. Sometimes they shouted at each other and Lancelot did his best to ignore their ire that was not caused by the other but had no where else to be directed.

There had been a third man who journey from a far-off estate to Camelot when Merlin summoned the boy who did not know he was to be King, one who had grown up alongside the King and his now-Seneschal and declared his loyalty before Arthur was even bound to his new role. Bedivere, they called him, but it seemed like a name he had been given later in life such that who he was before he sat at the right hand of Camelot's keeper could remain a mystery.

Bedivere would join them on some early mornings, too, when matters of war were at hand. He seemed too young for the counsel he was able to give, seemed there were not enough years to his name to have afforded him the ability to lead Camelot and her King to victory time and time again.

He knew the morning would be one such morning. The messenger had come earlier in the day, winded and horrified, to warn the King that there were troops marching towards Camelot, burning down villages who could not give room and quarter to the soldiers.

Lancelot had felt sick to his stomach, the screams of people who could not have defended themselves or provided enough to save their own lives reaching his ears as the messenger told his story, delivered his dire warnings.

Tomorrow, he knew, how this war would be fought and how Camelot may win, how Arthur may yet be able to draw a peace from the enemy's violence would be laid out – first to Arthur, then to his most trusted Knights – and the decision on how far from the castle Camelot's fighting men would meet these strangers who did not yet know they were destined to die would be made.

The morning after, they would mobilize. 

And, because of these things yet to come, his King and his Queen were spending what Lancelot feared would be their last together, well, _together_.

Lancelot started pacing the too-short length of hall in front of his King's doors to keep himself occupied with something other than worry.

–

It was the queen who found him asleep, sitting up and half propped against the wall opposite the doors despite his best efforts.

“Lance,” she said as she put one hand on his shoulder, “Lance, he'll be out soon.”

Lancelot woke with a start and was on his feet before he realized he was even awake.

“Sorry,” he cast his eyes away from her, embarrassed, “Sorry, I mean, thank you, my Queen.”

She hid a chuckle behind her hand but her eyes were bright even in the low light of the still-burning hall torches.

“You are forgiven,” she told him. He knew she meant _There is no need for your apologies,_ but could not say that sort of thing directly, “It seems your coming days will be trying ones.”

“That seems to be the way the world is shaping, my Queen,” Lancelot hoped he did not look as exhausted as he felt.

“Be gentle on yourself,” she said, “I hope this war leaves the whole of you intact.”

It was such an odd things to say, the words making sense individually and together, but they seemed _wrong_ somehow, as if they were delivered to the wrong man, or perhaps even spoken at the wrong point in time.

He had taken too long to reply, for by the time he was able to move past the way the words felt they did not fit in this juncture of his life, the Queen was already gone and Arthur was _there_ , dressed and looking as if he had slept even less than Lancelot.

“Kay will be here soon,” Arthur informed Lancelot, “and Bedivere not long after. Come now, inside,” and Arthur was back in his chambers.

Lancelot shrugged before he could stop himself, looked around to ensure nobody saw his gesture that might be taken as an apathy to the King's command, and let himself into the King's chambers.

“Today is going to be long,” Arthur was seated at the table Lancelot knew was used almost exclusively for holding secrets even the round table could not bear, “and tomorrow even longer.”

Tomorrow, Lancelot reminded himself, they would set off on a path to war. 

There was no such thing as a short path to such a terrible thing.

–

_“The further we meet them afield,”_ Bedivere had said, _“the fewer towns they decimate.”_

Arthur had agreed, and Kay had grumbled as he went to see what rations he could get together on such short notice.

Wars, Lancelot had found out, were more often than not things that had a prelude. This prelude, he had learned, followed a basic outline. A grievance was brought to life, then brought forward. It was never something that could be settled with word, never something that could be paid off. Oh, Kings and their courts tried; everyone who held power generally tried to right this in anything but the blood of their own soldiers – at least, that was what they did on the surface.

Sometimes, though, war was brought to life by some jealous king or lord who wanted more to his name, wanted to secure a legacy greater than his forebears. These were the wars that came forth in fire and could not be swayed by reason or promise. 

This was to be one of those wars.

–

This was not a campaign; the efforts to secure Arthur's power had ended years ago. They would not be gone terribly long, at least not in comparison to a campaign. Lancelot tried to comfort himself with this knowledge. Failed, but tried.

He tried to ignore the sound of his sword clacking against his horse's armor, tried distracting himself with his own thoughts. Usually, this was an inadvisable route to distraction, but war was generally inadvisable, so he forgave himself from whatever dangerous thoughts he conjured.

Lancelot had always imagined there were many beings – gods, minor spirits, specters – who carried out all the nonhuman components of death. There was one who had been a woman, a grandmother to be exact, who had to bury her grandchildren. Upon her own death, she opted not for paradise, but to stay behind and carry the souls of children to the afterlife such that they could go gently into whatever awaited them.

Another had been seated at the right hand of the King among gods, once, but had fallen out of favor during an argument and as punishment had been forced to harvest souls. If his god-King caught him lingering, trying to offer comfort, the soul he was trying to show mercy would be destroyed in front of him. This one, Lancelot decided, ran and ran and ran, only harvesting the souls of those who happened to die in his path.

Yet another had been a warlord, powerful and feared but not quite respected. He thought himself immune to death, but his throat was slit in his sleep by one of his own men who thought his battle-fury had crossed the line into madness. His rage at such a lowly death caused him to show up again and again in the field of battle to take the final breath from the fallen.

It would be him they would see soon, if not coming for him then coming for those he slaughtered.

He wished his head was empty instead.

–

The battle had seemed unfair, the enemy's front lines populated by half-starved men who, Lancelot assumed, had been promised food and money after they took Camelot. They had swung their swords – and almost all of them had swords – like boys in the practice yard. 

Still, a sword swung by a novice could be deadly if left unblocked, and the madness of someone who thought battle-death was a better option than the long-suffering death starvation brought could not be quelled with the promise of sanctuary if they laid down their arms and swore their allegiance to Camelot. This was only even complicated by the fact whoever was driving the whole campaign had manipulated them into an unwavering loyalty that only death could shatter.

Once they – Lancelot and Arthur and Bedivere and everyone else on the front lines – had cut down those of the men driven to madness who did not retreat, Lancelot saw why they'd been so willing to run to the slaughter.

Those much closer to their skill level had hidden themselves in the back. Whether this was because they genuinely believed those men who never stood a chance could take on Camelot or wanted to try to tire those Lancelot stood beside out first, it was unforgivable.

It was cowardice.

Lancelot felt the battle-fury flood his veins as he charged forward, his sword meeting that of someone who held himself like he knew what it meant to do battle. Sparks, he realized, came from the place where the swords met. There had been no sparks from the first wave, Lancelot realized. Those poor bastards _had_ been given practice swords, cheap things not meant to withstand much at all.

He hoped the sparks would catch what was left of the grass on fire. At the very least, one among their number would survive even if their did not retreat. It would not be a noble death, burning alive in his armor, but it would not be a noble death from the monsters masquerading as human, either.

Lancelot let the fury drive him forward, let it take control of his sword and shield. Men fell by his hand, again and again. He did not stop to move around the dead, simply let the arrogance of those who saw their fellow soldiers fall by his blade charge him again and again.

He knew, somehow, that those he called his allies had the same fury driving them forward; he knew their shared rage at the injustices these men called war efforts would see an end to this campaign of suffering.

There would be no more towns destroyed in the name of what these inhuman men thought they were owed.

Lancelot charged at the warlord responsible for this.

–

They had not looted the dead, but the caravans left unattended in light of their keepers' deaths had been hooked to still-living horses and brought back with the enemy survivors who had not fled once it was clear the battle was lost.

A cursory glance at the wagons' contents told Lancelot this was a fight they had genuinely believed they could win. Not only that, they planned on moving their most valuable possessions into the castle immediately rather than send for them once victory was attained.

Arrogance, Lancelot pointed out to himself, was no ally or companion in victory.

–

Back at Camelot, he stood beside his King – both of them still in their battle armor, dried blood caked on their hands and feet and splattered everywhere else – as he made his proclamation to the survivors they marched back to Camelot: Swear allegiance to Camelot and whoever wore her crown, or be tried as enemies. Lancelot wished the sheer number who refused to bend a knee for anyone but their fallen warlord surprised him. Judging by the sigh that was so quiet Lancelot nearly missed it altogether, his King, too, had not been surprised.

Somewhere behind him and off to the right, Sir Bors' disappointed noise came a bit louder. Officially, nobody spoke aloud the name of the man who wore the executioner's cloak, it was an open secret around his King's table that it was Bors who swung the axe, a combination of his strength and compassion for the suffering of others ensuring all it ever took was one swing per person.

The bloodshed was not yet done for the day.

–

Lancelot could not sleep that night. Even with his armor on its way to the smith for repairs and the cleanest water having been brought in again and again at his King's request when Lancelot was unable to stop scrubbing at his own skin. Not matter what he tried, no matter how pure the water, he swore the blood of men whose only wrong in their life was being born somewhere they could not afford to keep their bellies full still clung to him. Eventually, his King had ordered him to get dressed and move on. He did as he was commanded, though the fresh clothes felt dirtied the moment he had put them on. 

There would be no victory feast that night, or perhaps for many nights. The kitchen's keeper had tried to organize _something,_ but had been ordered to rest the instant his King noticed. Despite their brotherly rivalry that sometimes teetered into treason, Kay knew when Arthur was right, or at the very least knew when to bow out gracefully.

Lancelot didn't know if he could have eaten if he'd tried.

His King had decided to retire early for the night under the social cloak of having work to do. Lancelot had followed and when it was clear the _work_ his King had mentioned was sleep, he felt a smile tugging at his mouth despite the heaviness of the day.

–

Lancelot awoke to the sound of his King's chamber door creaking open. He was on his feet and reaching for his sword before he had even registered he'd been woken up.

“Lance,” the Queen hissed, “it's me.”

Lancelot, who had just found the edges of his sword's pommel, froze. It was too dark to see anything and no candles had been lit before both he and his King had passed out from exhaustion.

Behind him, his King stirred.

“Don't sneak up on me like that,” Lancelot hissed, then realized that was no way to speak to his Queen, so he added, “My Queen.”

His Queen, thankfully, merely chuckled.

“Gwen,” his King's voice was slurred just slightly with the edges of sleep still hanging onto his mind, “what are you doing?”

“I have been ensuring the hoard of treasures you brought back to the castle remains undisturbed,” she said it like it was obvious, “Do you know what's _in_ those wagons, Art?”

“I didn't give it too close of a look,” Arthur was about to sit up and swing his legs over the edge of the bed, Lancelot could tell, “I was a bit more focused on getting home.”

Lancelot couldn't help the single-syllable chuckle that escaped.

“Gawain is watching it for now,” she informed the both of them, “Some unfortunate farmhand had to deliver the orders. I do not know how long he will remain uninterested in what's to be found.” There was a barely suppressed laugh behind her voice.

She was not going to tell them what she was talking about – she wanted to show them. They seemed to realize this at the same time, Lancelot's feet taking him to where he knew a torch was and Arthur already headed for the door.

–

“Treasures,” his King repeated the word his Queen had used once she shoved the first layer of boxes aside and pried the lid off one of the crates, “You were underselling them, I fear.”

His Queen was wearing what looked to be an old set of clothes that perhaps belonged to a stablehand. They were near as much patches as they were original fabric. Her hair was tucked under a hear covering that also helped obscure her face. Even in the torch's low light, he could recognize her despite her efforts to conceal herself. He knew, though, few people every got to see her up close enough to know the color of her eyes or the way the edges of her mouth quirked when she was amused.

He realized that _she_ was the unfortunate farmhand who'd ordered Gawain to guard the wagons. He realized, too, why there were times it seemed impossible to find Camelot's Queen, even with half the servants searching discreetly. It was likely she'd even periodically joined the searches for herself to avoid scrutiny.

She'd found a form of freedom being Queen never would have been able to afford her. His King, for his part, seemed to know about this and took no issue with it. And Lancelot, because he trusted his King to his last breath, he decided his Queen's deception was one she could be trusted with.

“What is it?” Lancelot asked from outside the wagon.

“Looks Roman,” his King picked something up to examine it more closely.

“Greek,” his Queen corrected, “this crate,” she tapped one Lancelot could not see with the bar she'd used to pry the first crate open, “has some Roman glass wares in it.”

“Whoever lead this war effort,” Arthur handed the thing he'd grabbed – a vase – to Lancelot and helped his Queen re-seal the crate, “either had many, many successes across the map of the world, or came into wealth and thought to accrue more of it.”

“I would guess the later,” Lancelot said before he realized it.

“And I would agree,” his King sounded sad, “Good instinct, Gwen, going through the crates before anyone else did.”

“Bad instinct, Art, just letting them sit there,” she scolded. Her voice was light and teasing, though, and his King laughed and gave her a gentle, playful shove with his upper arm. She returned the shove, slightly less gently, also laughing.

Lancelot pretended it was hunger from skipping at least two meals and not jealousy he felt coiling in his belly.

“Uh,” Lancelot held the lamp up with the hand that was not holding the torch. He was sure he had wanted to say something of meaning, but whatever it was had escaped him.

“Ah fuck,” his King swore in front of him for the first time, “Well, guess that's coming back up with us.”

“Should I have Gawain return to guard the caravan?” his Queen asked as she hopped off the wagon. Her landing onto the paving stones was one that had been clearly practiced. 

“No, not Gawain,” his King shook his head, “someone who was not a part of the battle.” His Queen nodded her understanding before she disappeared into the shadows.

Lancelot, torch in one hand and vase in the other, followed his King like it was all he was born to do.


	2. Chapter 2

Sorting through the wagons had been something that made the battle seem like the easy part.

Lancelot was, he chastised himself, being overly dramatic and likely disrespectful to the dead, but he would do his best to forgive himself once the exhaustion had been chased from his bones.

It had taken near a month to unpack every crate, chase the oft-moldy packing straw from artifacts that would have fared better wrapped in cloth or separated by furs. But, these were not artifacts that had been gathered by a rich man. These were stolen things, their treatment (and sometimes broken state) a testament to the thought the army they had faced had won more battles than they had any right to.

_“I think they made a habit of attacking less-defended Kings and Lords whose family held power for generations,”_ the Knight known as Dinadan had suggested somewhere around the close of the first week, _“Lots of riches, not much to fight.”_

It made sense, perhaps, that these invaders, unfamiliar with the land and its stories, might have heard of a King whose father had hidden him away for his own safekeeping, who had been more boy than man when he took up the throne, and decided he would make for easy pickings. But then there would have had to be some draw, some promise that Camelot would also hold riches worth adding to their caravan of conquest to send them this direction and not somewhere further north or east.

Lancelot would have to ask the dead for answers, and that was not a prospect he found appealing.

His King had insisted in overseeing much of the unpacking and subsequent cataloging himself, which meant it was all done in the early hours of the morning or impossibly late hours of the night. If Lancelot had not come to the conclusion his King did not actually require sleep but only enjoyed it when he had the time to spare before this, he would have formed the theory over dismantling what was left of the war-stolen caravan.

“Careful with that!” Sir Kay was snapping at some less-fortunate knight, “Go home. No, I don't want to hear it. Go **home**.”

Lancelot did not bother to try to see who it was that had committed a sin notable enough to be sent away. It would be many more, perhaps even requiring something to be broken or someone to be injured before something resembling a more reasonable pace and schedule was even brought up. For now, everyone worked as fast as they could for as long as they could. 

He picked up a vase that looked similar to the one his King had picked up the night his Queen showed them what they had brought home. He gave it pause and turned it over in his hands, then kept turning it over and over again, looking over every bit of the story painted on it like it held secrets he needed to discover if he was ever to feel whole again.

“We're done for the night,” his King broke his focus, “Gawain, Dinadan, call tonight's guards.”

This was an abrupt change in the night's plan, but it was a welcome one, most of the other Knights so exhausted they did not even wait until they were out of earshot to begin to grumble about how exhausted they were.

“Sir Lancelot,” his King's voice was clipped, “bring that.”

Lancelot did as he was told.

“Everyone else,” his King's voice carried, “call the night your own.”

_Ah,_ Lancelot realized, _the night is not yet over for me.”_

–

It was seven of them, sitting so impossibly close in their King's rooms that Lancelot swore he could feel his King's breath on the side of his neck. His Queen, sitting directly across from him, was once again dressed in clothes more fitting a stablehand. Sir Kay and Sir Bedivere were sat together on the same lounge, impossibly close and looking like different people entirely. Sir Gawain, too, his King's eldest nephew who was said to have spent near a week with a wild god and came back alive but different. And finally, Sir Mordred, so young yet already worth near five men on the field and more in a battle of wits.

It was this small group that his King thought worth his trust and near-intimate attentions; these were the people Lancelot feared the most, their closeness to his king – to Arthur – something he did not want to see become something unthinkable, something that could not be undone.

“So we know these aren't normal spoils of war,” Sir Gawain's voice was slurred, whether with sleep or drink he'd managed to find between the cataloging and where they were in that moment, “but what _are_ they?”

Lancelot swore he felt a sharp intake of air from his King that was not quite a breath but not quite anything else ghost the back of his neck.

“They belonged to the gods, once,” his King plucked the vase from Lancelot's hands, “kept by their most devoted followers.”

“And _that army_ managed to pillage them?” Sir Kay asked, incredulous.

“I fear there was more at play than we knew of,” his Queen spoke up, “but they are no longer anything we need to worry about.”

The missing information sent chills down Lancelot's spine that manifested as a full-body shiver.

“You seem sure,” Sir Mordred was unconvinced.

“I can pay more attention tomorrow,” Sir Gawain drummed his fingers against his shin, “I feel daft for not checking.”

Sirs Kay and Bedivere exchanged a glance so brief it may have been a trick of the torches' light.

“That winter really changed you,” Sir Mordred looked at his brother as he did sometimes, as if the eldest and heir to the Orkney throne was a stranger, switched for the Gawain he'd grown up with and sent back with his brother's face.

Sir Gawain only laughed, a sound that wanted to sound as free as its maker had hoped for yet only succeeded in telling Lancelot how much Sir Gawain had not told any of them about what he'd experienced, who he'd become under the wild forest god who spared his life.

“What's that vase?” Sir Bedivere changed the subject to something that seemed safer.

“Seems to be a story,” his King was still turning the vase over in his hands, “Not one I'm familiar with, though.”

“May I see?” his Queen asked, her hand already extended. The vase was passed from King to Queen above Lancelot, the air charged with what Lancelot swore was magic.

His Queen turned the vase over, faster but with a heavier judging weight to her appraisal. There was a sense of reverence in what she was doing. Lancelot could not tell if her eyes were open; it seemed she was taking the vase's story in through her fingertips.

“This is the story of Ganymede,” she finally said.

“Ganymede?” Lancelot heard himself ask.

“I think the tutors mentioned him,” Sir Gawain's frown was audible, “Can't say I remember much more than that.”

“He was a mortal who Zeus favored,” Sir Mordred rolled his eyes, “I doubt it ended well.”

“For Ganymede, it did,” there was a laugh carefully hidden behind his Queen's words, “He was to be King upon his father's death, but Zeus found him the most beautiful man he had ever seen.”

“Definitely not seeing how this could have worked out well for him,” Sir Mordred muttered.

“The stories do not tell us how Ganymede adjusted to his new life as a would-have-been King, bound to serve the King of the gods,” his Queen continued, “We may never know if he resented this new King he could never succeed, if he railed against his role as cupbearer before he embraced the role.”

“To keep such a King safe,” Sir Kay's words were weighted rather than automatic as they tended to be, “and to survive in such an unfamiliar world would have required Ganymede to sacrifice his entire sense of belonging and make himself anew.”

“There is an implication gods can be poisoned,” Sir Mordred interrupted.

“Everyone has their weakness,” his Queen's words were nowhere near as light as they had been the moment before, “even gods.”

The way she spoke, Lancelot wondered if she knew first-hand.

“In the end, the stories seem to agree Ganymede loved Zeus,” his Queen continues, “Whether as a god or a King or in a more carnal way is up to what the storyteller wants to see, but the love was real.”

There was a moment of silence that felt, to Lancelot, almost like mourning.

“And what do you want to see?” Sir Bedivere asked. Sir Kay, in a reversal of roles, elbowed the other in the ribs and made a sound that might have been a shushing one.

“I want Ganymede to be happy,” his Queen answered without actually telling anyone the world she saw for this god and his favored mortal.

Behind him, his King made a sound that sounded like skepticism.

“It doesn't really seem like a step down from King,” Sir Gawain argued, “serving a god. Loving a god.”

That was more than the Green Knight had ever said about his time at the Green Chapel. Lancelot felt pangs of empathy that were gone as soon as they came, confusion in the vacuum they left.

“But then you would have to watch the world you left behind shift until it became unrecognizable,” Sir Kay was running his fingertips up and down the seams of the hose that covered Sir Bedivere's lower legs.

“And Zeus would have to watch Ganymede age and die,” Sir Mordred added, “and Ganymede would live knowing that no matter his beauty and loyalty, the King who held him in his service would lie with others as he pleased.”

“Kings are beholden to rules they can never speak of,” his Queen was looking directly at his King, “I would imagine the King of gods would need to find unique ways to show his favor did not falter regardless of what his duties and reputation required.”

It did not seem she was still speaking of Zeus.

“So is this a vase of a follower of Zeus, then?” Sir Gawain circled back to much earlier in the conversation.

“Of Ganymede's, I think,” his Queen said.

Sir Gawain made a noise that sounded like suppressed hurt. And held his hands out. He was handed the vase carefully. It was a normal thing, no feelings of magic that made Lancelot fear he was going mad, no charge to the air as there was when the thing was handed from King to Queen.

“It's beautiful,” Sir Gawain said, “It looks like the details were etched in very lightly before they were painted on.”

They took turns, each of them examining the vase carefully.

“If you don't mind,” Sir Kay said as he finally got to handle the artifact, “I will be taking this.”

“You can visit it,” his King informed the Seneschal.

Sir Kay looked as though he might argue, but handed the vase back to Lancelot. Lancelot held it to his chest as if it were a child, precious and worthy of protection.


	3. Chapter 3

Mount Badon.

He knew this place, knew how here the earth and sky often seemed to blur into one as if they wanted to suspend those who dared walk on this hallowed ground in time and space.

It was a bad place to be marching to battle.

He carried Camelot's banner – carried his King's banner – with pride, refused to let fear creep into his awareness. If he felt fear, he would be open to feel how the land wept at their invasion.

If only he could explain to this hallowed ground that they were doing this so those whose blood they were going to shed would not warp this place, would not try to erase the people who once called these hills their home.

“You were to be King, weren't you?” Sir Mordred – too young to be on the front lines but too proud to recognize that rank did nothing to spare your life – asked as their horses started to sense the rising fear from those walking behind them. The beasts were raising their feet almost too high, desperate to run. Their fight-or-flight instincts had began to kick in, and even a war horse might run without a sure-handed master to urge it forward.

“I suppose,” Lancelot found the question strange, “though I was not raised to believe I would be King.”

He had, for the most part, kept the details of his life before Camelot. As far as he was concerned, the years that happened before he swore himself to Arth – to his King – mattered little. He was Champion; his life belonged to Camelot.

“Nor was he,” Sir Mordred avoided both name and title.

Unsure what to say, Lancelot did not respond and hoped the conversation would be dropped altogether. It had been years since their Queen had told them the story of Ganymede, and he swore that the other Knights in the room had looked at him differently ever since. Even Sir Kay, ever brash and always ready with an insult that felt like a truth, had left him alone despite ample opportunity to poke at the weak points of his character.

It seemed as if they though him Camelot's Ganymede. He told himself this was impossible: Sure, he could have been King, but of what? A castle whose occupants saw no difference between him and the force that had plunged his birth parents' stolen legacy into a darkness so severe it developed a persona? No, that was not the life he wished to lead, not the legacy he wished to leave behind.

Somewhere well behind the front lines, Sir Galahad rode with the younger Knights. He had come to court alone, barely a month ago, his divine purpose so obvious and fighting prowess so terrifying that the Queen herself Knighted the boy almost immediately after he had arrived. The Court and the servants alike could find little else to discuss now that this child God had burdened with purpose.

For Lancelot, it was like looking in a slow-moving river, his own face staring back at him in the form of this boy. He knew, deep inside his soul, this boy was his, the result of the worst night of his life, the sum of his failures to keep his strength and his virtues about him in the face of gentle force. 

He confessed this to his King, and then to his Queen at his King's insistence, after his King's simple _Tell me what troubles your soul, Lancelot,_ mere weeks after that wretched night had unraveled what little resolve to keep his secrets away from the rest of his life he had managed to spin together.

When Sir Galahad came to court, his King had taken him on what he said was a hunting trip to let him weep in solitude. The truth was never spoken aloud and no hart or boar were struck down between them.

Lancelot kept his head forward, kept his thoughts away from the son he could never be a father to.

“It is better to serve a King whose destiny is written in the stars than it is to try to bend the gods to your will,” Lancelot said aloud. Beside him, Sir Mordred snorted, a disdain that seemed to mock Lancelot's declaration.

–

He felt the men on either side of him like they were extensions of himself, the line of men who would lead the charge acting as a single thing; in this, they were the warlord's vengeance, a promise to those who dared deny him his legacy that their time would come. He wished he were indeed the immortal servant of a God-King, even if it meant running for the rest of time. At least then he could avoid the slaughter.

A war horn, one he knew his son carried, sounded. One note, reverberating through the hills, telling them it was time to surge forward with Lancelot leading the charge.

He let the banner drop and drew his sword.

–

It was going to be impossible to win, Lancelot realized.

Their leader – War Marshall, Champion, King, he could not tell – was untouchable. From the few glances he had stolen in that direction, man after man from Camelot had been cut down.

Everyone on the very frontlines had been unhorsed almost immediately. Either the animals' armor did not hold, or they threw their rider and ran, or their rider had some sort of unexpected acquaintance with the ground and all but the most well-seasoned of war horses did what any prey animal would do in the face of hundreds of swords far larger than any natural fang.

They ran.

A part of Lancelot did not blame the animals. He felt more like prey than predator, the untouchable foe only biding its time until it cut the Champion of the King-in-Opposition down, leaving the King far too open to be protected.

That could not happen.

Lancelot would not allow that to happen while he still drew breath, still was able to hold a sword. 

He did the only thing he knew how to do.

He ran directly towards his own King-in-Opposition.

–

Lancelot stood firm despite the shaking of his legs. He felt weak, like he might never again be able to stand upright, the weight of his own head too much to carry upright.

There was nothing around him, the sounds of battle were gone, replaced by a murmur that seemed to ripple outward like a stone cast into a pond on a calm day.

That was one thing a battlefield should never be – calm.

It was raining, some part of him he could not connect with noted; it was raining hard where there had been almost no clouds in the skies when he'd dropped his King's banner.

Against his better judgments, he cast off his helmet. Around him, there was nothing but fallen soldiers, their armor ripped to shreds as if they had been wearing cloth and not metal or boiled leather. He realized, almost belatedly, that he was well into the enemy's lines. Slowly, and again against any better ideas he might have in hindsight, he turned in a circle where he stood, his left heel anchored in the too-soft earth.

His arms hung limp beside him, the tip of his sword barely above the bodies that were too close to him. His jaw, too, hung limp, though this was shock and not exhaustion. There were no colors of Camelot he could identify among the dead that littered far too much ground for him to be alone like this.

A figure too far away to identify was running from Camelot's lines – the rest of Camelot's forces frozen as if under a spell – towards Lancelot.

Feathers.

Of everything he did not understand about what he saw, it was the amount of black feathers that seemed to have latched on to the spilled blood of the dead.

Sir Gawain – that was the runner – seemed to have shed his armor for the sake of speed, the padding far less limiting.

“Lancelot,” Sir Gawain sounded horrified as he grabbed Lancelot's still-armored hand, “Lancelot, come on, we need to,” Sir Gawain swallowed as if something had gotten stuck in his throat, “Let's go home.”

This seemed like a sensible idea.

–

Lancelot rode alongside his King, who spent much of the return trip looking over at Lancelot without speaking. His King insisted he be flanked on the other side by Sir Gawain, who spent the trip looking ahead with his jaw set, periodically tugging at the bright green sash he was never seen without.

Despite their best efforts to keep Lancelot away from the others, to keep Lancelot to themselves, Lancelot heard what the others were saying.

A host of Camelot's greatest could not deny what they saw: It was as if the fury of a god who found his legacy spat on with blood of those who pledged themselves to a false King has risen up and taken over the King's Champion. Lancelot, they said, ran clear for the other King. The enemy forces had closed around him too fast, their King retreated too readily for anyone to follow him when they realized what he had done.

Ravens, they swore, descended by the thousands, came down from a clear sky that had turned to thundercloud with no preamble, birds and rain washing the blood from the ground. When the birds seemed to have dissolved into rain, Lancelot alone stood where the false King and dozens of enemy soldiers lay dead, their armor and flesh alike shredded to ribbons.

–

It got no better when they at last returned to Camelot. Lancelot had only been able to speak to Sir Gawain, the rest either unable to be found or skittered away when they saw the King's Champion coming their way.

It was, somehow, worse than not actually remembering what happened on the field.

He wanted to trust everyone else, wanted to believe that somehow he had called down rains and lightning and thunder and ravens to his aid. But some things, even with his unique upbringing, were impossible.

Sir Gawain, who had not seemed afraid _of_ him, was nowhere to be seen.

He debated going back home, not to the castle of the people who brought him into this world but to the waters of the woman who raised him. She had told of many improbable things, of fair folk and monsters and gods and men whose magic became so powerful they rivaled the gods themselves. 

She might be able to tell him what the others saw. Might know what he had done.

That would have meant either leaving his King without a Champion – not that there were not others who could step up in Lancelot's stead – or convincing his King to come with him, which was somehow even more terrifying.

He was pacing in the darkness as his King slept further back in the chambers. He turned the idea of returning to a place he hadn't been since he breached the surface of the lake, a right of passage he had not understood until much later, over and over in his mind.

He felt so alone, so isolated in the Camelot he'd come to think of as his home. He was never the most social Knight, never the one to initiate conversation, but now he was unapproachable. Intolerable, even.

But it was still home, right?

The soft sound of one of the door opening pulled him from his thoughts – only his Queen could open the door so softly. Had he been asleep, he may have slept through her arrival.

“My Queen,” he whispered.

“One day you're going to call me Guinevere,” she said it like it was a challenge, “I figured you would be awake.”

“You did?” Lancelot chose not to comment on her probably-challenge.

“You have been back nearly a week and look as if you have not slept a bit,” she informed him. There was something to her voice that suggested she knew he's ask that question.

“How could I,” Lancelot tried to keep his words quiet despite his desire to yell, to scream, to curse whatever it was that happened to him – Because of him? – and purge his soul of everything he had become.

“It's always awful the first time,” her hand found his, “I would imagine it's worse when you weren't aware it was going to happen one day.”

“What?” The question was louder than he'd meant it to be. His Queen squeezed his hand and, instead of letting go, lead him to sit on the couch the King usually sat on when he was surrounded with his most trusted people.

“My mother's side of the family,” his Queen told him as they sat down, so close to each other he swore he could feel the heat of her cheeks, “I do not know how long ago, but we are descended from Hephaestus. The blood of the gods remains as strong as it was new every generation, so what I hold and what the first child of the union held is the same.”

There was so much wrong with what she had just said, so much that couldn't be true. He was – he was Lancelot. He knew this because he saw his name on his family tomb and _knew_ it to be true, knew that he had been looking at the names of his parents, and their parents, and their parents' parents, going back until the very first King and Queen of Joyous Gard. 

The gods were distant figures, not...not him.

“I thought you were Roman,” was the first thing that Lancelot's vocal cords produced.

His Queen laughed so loudly that his King awoke.

“Gwen?” his King's voice was muffled, “Gwen, what on Earth?”

“Sorry,” she was trying to reel in her laughter, “I told him.”

“And?” his King's voice was clearer, but still thick with sleep.

“He asked the same question you did,” she seemed to be having some success in regaining control of the sounds she was making.

Lancelot could hear his King getting out of bed and shuffling over towards them, following the sound of his Queen's laughter as it faded into muffled giggles.

His King came to sit on his other side so that he was sandwiched between them, impossibly close and impossibly warm.

“I don't,” Lancelot tried to find the words, “this is all,” words weren't working with him, “Why me?”

Words, Lancelot decided in that moment, had to be actively working against him. The entire spoken lexicons of every language he'd even heard in passing had banded together to bring about his demise. That was the only explanation for what was happening.

“I think she's right,” his King said it like he was musing options for supper, “that somewhere alone the bloodline, you've got god in you.”

“I hadn't quite gotten that far so directly,” his Queen informed his King, “but yes. Well, goddess. The Morrigan, specifically.”

Lancelot felt his throat close around the very air he was trying to breathe. The room seemed to spin, even in the dark. He closed his eyes as if that would help anything.

“Easy,” his King instructed as he put an arm across Lancelot's lower back, “easy breaths, Lance.”

Lancelot tried to listen, tried to measure his breaths despite the crushing weight that threatened to turn him to dust if he tried to ignore the call of his own blood now that someone had spoken it aloud.

“Why?” Lancelot asked again. It was a weaker thing, a frightened thing, the knowing of this particular truth a force that knocked the very core of who he was off its bearings.

“I cannot tell you why the world contains things like us,” his Queen told him, her voice gentle.

“Neither of you are things,” his King seemed displeased with the term, “What you did, Lance...it was...”

“Apparently horrifying,” Lancelot muttered.

“You called a storm and the ravens of a goddess,” his King's voice was little but unguarded awe, “When we...the battle where we came back with all the artifacts,” a pause, a near-frustrated silence leaking into it, “You cut down someone who had stolen from the gods themselves.”

“And from the sounds of it kept his army alive through some questionable means,” his Queen was quick to add.

“Necromancy,” Lancelot breathed before he realized the word had left his mouth.

“If not necromancy then something close to it,” his King shook his head.

“The frontlines,” Lancelot shook his head as if it could stop him from reliving the battle, “They were all so weak, so half-starved looking. I...”

“You charged in like a man who thought he could take on death itself and win,” his King sounded more worried than impressed, “those who we battled against parted to make room for you, as if they knew you would win if they tried to stop you.”

“I don't remember anything after I decided whoever hid himself and his best men behind starving men needed to die,” Lancelot tried to make himself smaller, as if that would help what he was feeling.

“Nothing near as god-like as Mount Badon,” his King had not moved his arm. Lancelot took what felt like a forbidden comfort in the closeness.

“Near as,” Lancelot did not miss the modifier in his King's assessment.

“You killed someone who had stolen from gods,” his Queen said as if the Lancelot had forgotten, “There's a reason he was...so successful.”

“And a reason he fell,” his King pulled him closer. It was a small thing, almost imperceptible, but there, “That's twice now you've done the impossible.”

“I,” Lancelot squeezed his eyes closed despite the darkness, “The losses we were taking, I feared -” the words stuck in his throat and died there, bottlenecked and suffocated under the surge of fresh terror that threatened to take the very breath from his lungs.

“You did the right thing,” his King tried to assure him.

“I didn't so anything!” Lancelot cried and lept to his feet. His King was on his feet, too, one hand around Lancelot's wrist, acting as both something to ground him and a tether to prevent and chance of flight.

“Maybe not consciously,” his Queen's words were so calm that they felt like an injustice, “but that does not mean you did not do anything.”

Lancelot let his King pull him back down to the couch, let his King _hold_ him like he mattered as a person first and a Champion second.

“It doesn't seem real,” Lancelot referred to many things at once.

“It won't for a while,” his Queen placed a firm, comforting hand on his shoulder.

“What did you,” Lancelot was unsure if this was the sort of thing one asked “How did you find out?”

The darkness did nothing to hide his Queen's sigh. It sounded as if she had been carrying something too much for her to handle and had finally set it down.

“My mother told me, when I was barely still a girl,” his Queen said it like it was a fact and not a confession as Lancelot feared it might seem, “At first I thought she was lying, or had gone mad.”

There was a pause that lasted just long enough for Lancelot to wonder if it was as much of the story as she was going to share with him.

“Sacrifice,” his Queen said in a rush, “myself, my mother, every ancestor as long as we've been a bloodline has control over our magic through sacrifice. Blood, usually, and the amount of it needed is determined by what we are aiming to accomplish, but it's,” she took a deep breath as if she's ran out of air, “It's something I am very, very mindful of tapping into because I want to be sure I will be alive to see the end result.”

Lancelot wondered if there had been moments she debating exchanging her life for something, but did not ask. He did not know what he would do if her answer was yes.

“My parents are dead,” the words felt dry in Lancelot's throat, “Their parents are dead. I have no one to teach me how to get control of this.”

“We will be beside you,” his King said it like a promise.

Lancelot believed him.

–

When Lancelot finally saw Sir Gawain again, there was a man Lancelot had never seen but knew anyways from stories he had heard.

Sir Gawain had brought a god home with him.

Was there a tipping point when it came to divinity? If enough individuals with the blood of the gods coursing through their veins assembled in one area, did the divinity start to overtake the humanity in them?

Lancelot did not asked these questions out of fear of the answer. He knew, despite wishing he did not, that he would learn the answers one way or another. Perhaps it was better to be unprepared.

Sir Bertilak – though Lancelot suspected that was not the name Sir Gawain called him outside the castle walls – seemed to always be just out of reach. He was watching, that much Lancelot knew, his too-green eyes almost unblinking. 

His King conducted business as usual, going so far as to call his most trusted Knights to the round table. In public, he said that now that Sir Gawain was returned, they could meet as one again. In private, Lancelot suspected his King was testing exactly how welcome this strange god would make himself.

Sir Bertilak did not join the King's council, but Lancelot felt as if the god was there anyways, something about his presence lingering in ways he knew no words for.

It was the most unique meeting Lancelot had ever attended. Instead of explaining why he had assembled everyone, his King began by asking Sir Percival to recount his time in the Wasted Lands, told him to spare no detail in telling everyone else of the Fisher King and the objects he saw but did not question.

Sir Percival stumbled his way through the story. The young Knight seemed to spend mush of the time deliberately looking to see if the path between himself and the chamber's door was clear such that he might run and never stop running.

The more details the lad parted with, the worse Lancelot had felt for him. Granted, he did not know the other man very well at all, but he knew how being raised apart from the world gave everyone around you a head start, knew what it was like to have the existence of your father ignored, the man dead before any memories of him could form. 

Sir Percival parted with these details, too, as he recounted the way the Fisher King bled without the flow ever stopping. Nor did this King-of-the-Wastes die. He, like his land, had been rendered useless, forced to wait for someone of divine lineage to save King and land both from the deathless waste to be all there would be to their legacy.

Sir Percival admitted he did not know of any divinity within his lineage, did not think he was related to angels, did not know if such relation was even possible. It was, Sir Percival told everyone present, likely a hyperbole, but hyperbole or literal, it was not meant to be him who returned life to land and King.

Lancelot's heart stopped for a moment before it picked up again, faster than it had any right to be. He had divine lineage. He had a son, here in this very room with him, who was said to have been born with a burden he and he alone could carry out.

Lancelot felt as if he might vomit or faint or scream.

The rest of the meeting passed without him, his thoughts and body so disconnected it took his King putting a hand on his shoulder to realize it was just them, Sir Gawain, and the strange god who wore a man's face and took a man's name in the chamber.

“It's him,” Lancelot managed to say, “It's him.”

His son was to heal the wasted lands with this Grail young Sir Percival had failed to procure.

“Yeah,” he heard Sir Bertilak say, “You were right, Gawain. He's descended from her.”

Lancelot's mind went blank again.

–

That night, his King's most trusted men plus a small number of others found themselves in his King's chambers. Lancelot tried to pretend things were as they always had been, but the presence of Sir Bertilak made the fact things would never go back to they way they once were impossible to ignore.

Sir Agrivane had joined them, too, though he seemed more interested in teasing his eldest brother than he was in the fact he was in the most private place in the entire castle, perhaps in the entire kingdom.

“Gaheris told us you'd spent the holiday with a man who was not a man,” Sir Agrivane said as he stole his brother's wineskin, “but we did not quite believe him.”

“Gaheris shares too much,” Sir Gawain rolled his eyes.

Sir Gawain and Sir Bertilak sat near to Lancelot and his King, seemed unbothered by what Lancelot had done at Mount Badon.

“Oh quit,” Sir Mordred rolled his eyes but his smile seemed the kind that preceded the revealing of a hidden weapon, “We sit with the King and you two banter as if we were still children.”

“I think that is the role of brothers,” Sir Kay's words were nowhere near as light as they should have been, his gaze keeping Lancelot just within its parameters no matter where the Seneschal looked, “to forget their company when the other's pride is for wounding.”

Sir Bedivere elbowed Sir Kay, and just like that the tension in the room centered around Lancelot snapped.

“Oi!” Sir Kay tried to sound displeased, but there was laughter in his eyes.

Lancelot watched as Sirs Kay and Gawain defended their eldest sibling 'rights' and Sirs Mordred and Agrivane tried to strip these apparently dearly held rights away from the only two eldest siblings in the room while everyone else laughed.

Lancelot could pretend things hadn't changed, even if it only lasted the night.

–

When Sir Bors announced he would accompany the young Sirs Galahad and Percival on their quest to find this impossible Grail, Lancelot felt jealousy and relief set a war in his heart.

His son, he hoped, would be safer with the most compassionate among those his King kept at court, would be guided better by someone whose heart had not been stained with the knowledge the wild magic of the gods flowed through his very soul.

They were gone over a year, during which Lancelot found himself more and more often allowing himself to _feel_ instead of lock his fears and regrets and moments that played themselves over and over in his nightmares in a part of his mind he did not allow to breach the surface of his mind.

Lancelot hoped the trio who chased the Grail, who promised redemption for a far-off King trapped outside of space and time, would be able to tell stories beyond his wildest imagination. He hoped – but did not dare pray – that this new God of his son would offer a protection the elder gods whose blood ran through their veins did not.

He loved his son, believed his son was something so far from the horrors of his conception that the sins of the mother had been washed away by this new God's hopes for his followers.

He experimented with how to tell Sir Galahad all of this, even asked his King and his Queen for advice on how the words sounded.

He waited for his son's return.

–

Lancelot was told that, when Sir Bors alone returned, Sir Galahad's warhorn strapped to one hip and Sir Percival's shield to the other, he loosed a scream frightened the angels themselves.

It rained for a month, the skies near as dark during the day as they were at night.

“How do you mourn a son you did not truly know?” he asked his King.

“I do not know,” his King sat by his side as they watched the rain fall.

Lancelot sighed and did not feel the weight that had settled in his bones shift at all.

Lancelot looked to his desk where his son's warhorn rested with a note Sir Bors had left with it.

“I cannot read,” Lancelot confessed to his King, “I do not know what the note says.”

There was a sort-of silence, the rain against the stone and puddles filling the spaces where true silence tried to creep. Lancelot looked down at his hands as if the answers to all the questions he had no words for might be found in the creases and scars.

“I can,” his King said, “Would you like me to -”

The question was left unfinished, but his King looked towards the desk, towards the warhorn and the note and Lancelot nodded. His King arose and walked over to the desk, each step too slow, too quiet.

His King brought both warhorn and note back to where Lancelot was still seated. He handed Lancelot the warhorn and Lancelot immediately began running his fingers over it, the desire to memorize every dent, every blow it had survived nearly consuming him.

They sat there in silence for a while, Lancelot running the thing over and over as if it would form a tether to his son's soul so he might be able to tell him everything he'd wanted to when he still had hope of seeing his son once more.

_“Lancelot,”_ his King began reading the note, _“I am truly sorry I failed your son,”_ his King's voice cracked and Lancelot felt tears stinking the edges of his eyes, _“He wished to be remembered to you, but I fear I do not know how to carry out such a wish in a way that honors the man he was and the love he held for you.”_

The sound that escaped Lancelot was a wounded one.

_“In place of words, please take his warhorn such that, should the day where the final battle must be charged into, it is his horn and your breath that lead the charge,”_ his King finished, his voice weak and hands trembling.

Lancelot's knuckles turned white as he gripped the warhorn so he did not drop it, his mind numb and his heart split into two with one piece dropped to the ground and the other left for somewhere that sorrow and pain could not touch.

“Oh Lance,” his King placed the letter down gentle and put a careful arm around Lancelot as if his Champion might bolt.

Lancelot clutched the warhorn to his chest and learned into his King as if it was the only thing he knew how to do.

“My King, I-” Lancelot tried to apologize, to tell him that his Champion might be broken, to find a space where his son's death could not follow him.

“Arthur,” his King interrupted, “Please, Lance, call me Arthur.”

It was dangerous, Lancelot thought, being Lancelot-and-Arthur in a space where a King might need his Champion. Grief, though, cared little for reason and much for a human element.

Lancelot and Arthur sat there for what may have been moments, may have been hours, the rain and Lancelot's ragged breath and broken sobs the only sounds this symphony of sorrow knew how to play for the world.


	4. Chapter 4

Lancelot stood still as the runner delivered the news: Queen Morgause of Orkney was dead.

In front of him and just out of reach, his King remained impassive save for the way the muscles in the back of his neck bunched together. Tonight, Lancelot knew, Arthur would mourn the loss of his sister, would let himself feel things in ways that allowed him to remember he was still human.

Tomorrow, they would gather Morgause's children and ride for Orkney.

–

“I do not understand,” Arthur had his head against Lancelot's shoulder, “She was young, still. Orkney had no enemies with the strength and cunning required to get in the castle.”

Lancelot had one arm around Arthur's shoulders, his other hand holding Arthur's tight. Lancelot wanted to have answers, to tell him why his sister was dead in a form that made sense. This was not a death he knew, not a death he had imagined before.

There was nothing to say – to Arthur or the darkness or the questions left unspoken – so Lancelot held the space required for Arthur mourn as his King could not.

–

Lancelot rode with the last of the Pendragon bloodline. Sirs Kay, Caradoc, and Palamedes rode as well, having been selected for their fighting prowess.

They'd been selected to defend two thrones in the event of an ambush, and Lancelot found himself feeling something akin to pity for them despite being among their number.

–

The brothers five knelt by their parents' tomb – their father dead before Lancelot had come to Camelot – and for the first time perhaps ever, they looked like a family. 

Sir Gawain seemed broken in spirit, his shoulders slumped forward and spine curved so much it seemed as if he might collapse if he leaned any further forward. On either side of him, Sir Gaheris and Gareth – not yet Knighted – grasped one of Sir Gawain's hands.

On the other side of the tomb, Sirs Mordred and Agrivane were each down on only on knee. Sir Agrivane had his head bowed and eyes closed, but there was no serenity about him. Sir Mordred was staring straight ahead, anger in his eyes much more than sorrow.

At the foot of the tomb, his King, too was down on one knee, wrists crossed over his raised knee and head bowed.

Lancelot stood at the crypt entrance with Sir Kay, ready in the event someone saw their mourning as weakness. Somewhere further out, Sirs Palamedes and Caradoc were pacing the grounds. While he would never leave his King's side, Lancelot envied them a little bit. The crypt was old and smelled of rot and stale blood, a horrific reminded that Queen Morgause was found slain in her own bed. It was rumored one of her lovers had slain her in a jealous rage after discovering she had more paramours than him. 

Lancelot wondered if that was a normal reaction to finding your lover also loved another, or if his own Queen was simply very understanding that the heart was not a wild animal to be tamed through shame and fear, but rather something that must be trusted and fed and allowed to roam until it found home with another heart of similar wildness.

–

Sir Gawain, now King of Orkney, left his next-eldest brother on the throne as regent. Sir Agrivane seemed to take this as a slight, but did not try to argue or refuse. Or, he did not argue or refuse in public.

Lancelot understood the desire to avoid one's rightful title; he felt no bond to the crown his birthright had secured for him. Perhaps he did not agree with Sir Agrivane being the best choice as regent, but there seemed to be little other choice. Sir Mordred had grown cold since the day after the funeral, and a cold King was too often a dead King. Sir Gaheris seemed to have gone mad, the death of his mother stripping his understanding of the world from him. That left Gareth, too young to be regent.

–

Before they departed for Camelot, Sir Gawain told his brother that in addition to being regent, he was to be married in the morning. Sir Agrivane did not take kindly to this.

Lancelot learned many new combinations of insults and swears listening to the eldest of Morgause and Lot's children argue about this surprise wedding.

Ultimately, Sir Mordred wound up staying at Orkney, waving the banner of keeping peace with Sir Agrivane and ensuring this new Queen was fit for the throne as Sir Gawain seemed to believe she was.

The ride back was too long, too quiet for the rage and grief that sat with the group thicker than the morning fog.

Returning to Camelot was no relief either, the halls filled with people too aware their King was mourning, too fast to make themselves scarce where before they lingered to stare at their King as if he were a god in his own right.

–

There was something wrong.

Not that there was not always something wrong – there would be no need for a King if things were always right with the world. This, though, was a more specific type of thing that was wrong.

As Lancelot looked around his King's table, there were far too many empty seats. Sirs Percival and Galahad had not joined them for far too long; their seats were destined to remain empty as a reminder of their losses.

Sir Agrivane, Lancelot knew, was unlikely to return unless Sir Gawain decided he wished to be King. And, if Lancelot was being honest with himself, he knew Sir Gawain would die before he took the throne. Agrivane needed to be considered the King in the North, not the regent.

Sir Mordred, too, was absent; he seemed to either be taking his time in returning, if he was planning to return at all.

Sir Gaheris had not been seen inside the castle since they had returned; some said the loss of his mother had driven him to madness. If Camelot's healers had tried to help him, their efforts had done nothing. Or, at the very least, their efforts had provided no help to the lost Knight.

Sirs Lamorak and Dinadan had been absent, too, with no word of where they'd gone to or when they thought they may return. Sir Dinadan's absence has unsettled Sir Palamedes, who had only appeared at the table when he was asked to directly. 

His King had spent almost his entire reign filling those seats, hand-selecting the best and most trust-worthy among his Knights. The amount of effort it had taken from the hands of fate to undo the efforts seemed to be very little.

His King, Lancelot knew, was losing control of his court one loss at a time. 

–

Lancelot feared this was the moment his King had lost control of his court entirely.

Sir Gawain, half drunk and furious over something only the demons that chipped away at his spirit knew the nature of, knighted the court's Fool – the last member of the court who'd served both King Arthur and his father, King Uther. 

The newest children who'd come to Camelot were far more of common stock than of royal. While Lancelot thought this was a good thing, Gawain – either in truth or in an echo of something darker – claimed this was only a step away from populating the front lines with half-starved men.

Lancelot had snapped, had told Sir Gawain to stand down. Sir Gawain, either emboldened by the resistance or wanting to feel worse about himself, had knighted the nearest non-Knight in the room, laughed, and spat at Lancelot before saying, “See how easy it is? Everyone in this castle could be a Knight by this time tomorrow and then there would be no one left to run the place.”

Sir Kay had, in what Lancelot thought was the Seneschal's first display of public opinion that wasn't verbal sparring, hauled Sir Gawain out of the room by his hair.

Dagonet – now Sir Dagonet – looked like he wanted to disappear.

When he did not show the next day in any capacity, Lancelot was not surprised.

–

It was well past dark when his Queen came to Arthur's chambers. She wore her nightgown and a thin robe over it instead of her stolen stablehand clothes.

“Guinevere?” Lancelot used her given name.

“Nightmare,” she said, “Is he awake?”

“Yeah,” Lancelot nodded, “mostly.”

Left unspoken was the nature of the nightmare that drove her not only from sleep but from her chambers.

“Art,” she walked to Arthur's bed and shook his shoulder gently.

He woke slowly, as if sleep had sunk its claws into him and threatened to drag him under.

She told the both of them her nightmare – fields of blood and fire, Arthur's banner torn asunder by his own kin. Arthur, in turn, told the two people he loved more than life itself that it was likely a vision of the future. Merlin, he told them, had foreseen Arthur's death at the hand of his own son. Before Lancelot could try to point out the obvious, Arthur drew the breath from his lungs with just four words.

“Mordred is my son.”

Lancelot wondered if the first stages of dying felt like shock. If so, this was good practice for the inevitable.

As Arthur told them of the wounds he'd carried most of his life, Lancelot was reminded of his own son's genesis.

For a long time, Guinevere said nothing as Arthur's words spilled like blood from a wound. When she finally spoke, all she said was, “If there was no avoiding this, I understand why you thought it wise to keep it secret. Fearing each sunrise might bring your death would have made for a miserable marriage.”

Lancelot wondered: if circumstances had been different, would he have loved her as he now loved Arthur?

That was not the question he needed to focus on, he knew that much.

Merlin was long gone, but that did nothing to nullify the magician's prophecies.

–

Word of Orkney's armies arrived barely a week later.

“You need to go,” Arthur told Guinevere, “Lancelot, accompany her. Both of you need to get far, far away from Camelot. Come back when the battle smoke has disappeared from the skyline.”

“Like hell,” Lancelot refused, “I will not let you go into battle without me!”

“That's what I am afraid of,” Arthur muttered, “Lance, I do not ask you this as your King.”

Left unsaid was, _I ask this of you out of love for you both._

“If Mordred takes Camelot, Guinevere _will_ die,” Arthur wasted no words, “There is no one else I trust to ensure she is not taken by surprise by more people than she can kill at once.”

Sacrifice, Lancelot remembered, was the key to Guinevere's magic. If she was required to sacrifice with no one to watch her back...

“Please,” Lancelot took one of Arthur's hands in both of his, “find a way to survive this.”

“I want to see you again,” Arthur made no promises, “Now, go, pack your bags and flee under the cover of night. Buy your horses in another town.”

Lancelot pressed a kiss to Arthur's cheek and left to give him a moment with his wife if he so desired it.

–

Guinevere met him in the kitchen well after sunset where Sir Kay only gave them a strange sideways look before shaking his head and heading in the general direction of his rooms.

“Do you think he will say anything?” Lancelot asked.

“No,” Guinevere shook her head, “He puts more thought into things than he likes to pretend he does.”

Lancelot found himself agreeing with her assessment.

–

It hurt, leaving Camelot.

Lancelot knew, somehow, that this would be the last he saw of his home. Tears pricked the edges of his eyes and he debated running back inside to tell Arthur that he was wrong to send them away, that Lancelot would call on as many gods as he needed to defend what he'd come to see as his.

Guinevere squeezed his hand as if sensing his thoughts.

“Come, fair Ganymede,” she told him.

“As if Zeus sent Ganymede away when Olympus fell,” Lancelot scoffed but did not turn back. He squeezed her hand and found himself unwilling to let go.

“Olympus may yet fall,” Guinevere told him, “I pray we are not alive to see how Zeus handles it.”

“So, are you Roman?” Lancelot realized she'd never said one way or another. It felt inconsequential, perhaps from another lifetime entirely, but another lifetime was what he needed to keep walking away.

“Irish,” she laughed, “My ancestors moved around a lot.”

Fitting, Lancelot thought, that she and the goddess whose blood coursed through his veins shared the same land.

They walked through the night and well into the next day. When they came to a town with an inn, Lancelot decided it was time to lie down even if they could not sleep.

“I'm glad he had you,” Guinevere said to the ceiling as they both tried to sleep.

“I'm glad I had him,” Lancelot confessed before he could put any walls up around his heart, “I've left half my soul in Camelot, I think.”

“Me, too,” she told him.

“We'll go back to get it one day,” he decided, “Both of us will.”

“So long as Arthur keeps Excalibur, Mordred will be unable to claim the throne no matter what he thinks his birthright is,” Guinevere whispered like she feared someone was listening in.

It was a valid, understandable concern.

“What do you mean?” Lancelot whispered back.

“Excalibur is the key to holding the throne,” Guinevere explained, “Merlin ensured no one but Arthur could find it until Arthur was ready to rule. I have faith that the same magic that has sustained Camelot through the generations will find a way to ensure Camelot remains protected.”

Lancelot could not tell if it was the exhaustion, but he found himself trusting in her faith.


End file.
